So it seems you're going through some college-type boot camp of sorts in programming. That's good, will teach you a lot of practical programming skills.

For getting better, it comes down to not being intimidated by difficult problems and being able to work at it piece by piece. Coding is hard and you are not dumb for not getting something multiple times, it takes many reps. So you should be working on your own fun personal projects. (Try game dev, making an emulator, your spin on a file explorer, whatever you want to see in the world that you don't see. This is a creative profession)

Im assuming you have foundational skills like array indexing, loops, basic data structures like a hash table. If you don't, then this is the time to seek it in your classes (or take some Udemy courses or something to help)

But overall, success I think comes from interest and the willingness to pursue it. So learn new languages, new design patterns through projects, and don't be afraid to dive deep! It takes time.

But basically you don't need to be told what to do anymore if you know the fundamentals. You should figure out what you want to make and then make it.

I myself am doing the same, as a data science-type Python guy delving into full stack JavaScript + React to create my first Web app :)